This feels like quite a difficult reality to internalise given we all grew up seeing only a select few exceptional people, with the stars aligning in their career, be able to do that.
Hopefully, SpaceX will set up some kind of excursion package where you get a Starbase tour, a primo front row seat to a launch and a limited edition T-shirt. Forget Taylor Swift tickets for >$1K when Starship can literally rock my world.
We might be less than 50 years out from Starship or similar launches being as boring as a plane taking off or a train passing by.
I'd even lay 50%-ish odds that they'll do back to back payload launches in 30 days or less by the end of next year. That'll of course depend on things going very well over the next few months so they manage to get a Starship to orbit and back on the ground at the launch site this year.
I think astronauts usually go through very rigorous testing and training. And I'm not sure that is something we can engineer ourselves out of.
Don't get me wrong, Shatner has worked hard to keep himself in shape. And he didn't get to orbit. But if you keep in shape (and are rich or famous) it may be an option.
> When it comes to the G-Forces being pushed on you, many roller coasters have peak G’s at or above these limits. Most people are probably familiar with the different rides at Walt Disney World so let’s use those for examples. At EPCOT, Mission Space is a centrifuge-based ride where you go through a simulated launch and landing on Mars. The sustained G’s on that ride is 2.5 G’s, close to how many G’s New Shepard will experience during launch.
> For the descent, Blue Origin says you must be able to withstand 5.5 G’s, if you ever rode Rock ‘n Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you would have experienced up to 5 G’s during the initial launch of the ride.
Epcot Mission Space (the "Orange" version) is pretty intense as it's really sustained G-forces, but manageable. During the ride, you have to reach in front of you to press some buttons, and that's when you feel the G-forces most. But for SpaceX/BlueOrigin, passengers do nothing.
Rock n Roller Coaster itself for the peak G is done by kids, not a big deal.
That night, hours later, as I lay on the floor of my friend’s bedroom (it was a sleepover), trying to fall asleep, I still remember feeling like the room was spinning. I never went back on that ride.
I didn't like it all that much. But what scared the hell out of me was when, on descent, the brakes malfunctioned. This caused the gondola to go screaming backwards past the platform where the next riders were lined up, fly through some butcher curtains and go crashing into a padded wall in a hidden cinder block cell at the end of the track.
We all sat there for a minute pretty stunned, and then some goofy employee came running out and jumped up on the front of the car. "Whoops! That wasn't supposed to happen!" He said. "But I have some great news for you! Who wants to go again??"
And of course, all the kids cheered.
Until it stops
People who apparently don't have motion sickness are funny, I know proactively not to go on things like that
A physically fit person can probably live normally at 2g all day with no problems other than feeling tired af until you get used to it and all farts being dangerous.
At 9Gs seconds matter no matter how fit you are.
I loved it.
3g is low enough that most humans shouldn't black out, even without training.
I'll also point out that professional astronauts are expected to remain functional for the entire assent (including emergencies, where g forces might peek much higher), which is not required for passengers.
I remember reading that the Titan 2 pushed so hard that even the astronauts, who were pretty tough test pilots back then, were happy when the engine finally shut off.
For example, the space shuttle uses it's wings (and body) to generate quite a bit of lift and spread the reentry over a much longer period. the g-forces during re-entry. It's 10min at 1.7g.
Though that's from LEO. Apollo came in directly from the moon at a much higher velocity, resulting in ~7g; For the Apollo missions that never left earth orbit, reentry was more like 3.5g.
A space ship aiming to carry untrained passengers will pick designs and mission profiles that are within their passengers abilities to withstand for both launch and reentry. Apollo picked a design and mission profiles with 7g reentry acceleration because they knew their trained astronauts could withstand it.
As for abort.. it's only limited spikes of high-g you only need it to be survivable for the passengers, while the pilots need to be able to control it.
I couldn't find published numbers for reentry.
I know it hits 2.5g for a second during the final flip maneuver, I suspect they have engineered it to hit about the same during reentry.
Forces depend a lot of the specific vehicle. The space shuttle peaks at 3 G, I've seen numbers from 3.6 to 4.5 (again peak) for Crew Dragon on the way up, 3-5 on the way back. Soyuz seems to be 4 on a good day and 10 on a bad one, plus the momentary forces during landing.
Since we put anyone willing to pay a few bucks on carnival rides that sustain (!) up to 3 G for minutes, and the profile can likely be adjusted at the expense of reduced payload capacity, I don't expect this to be a big problem.
I imagine the price of getting mass back down from orbit would bump your cost up a bit right?
Even if Starship delivers everything promised, I doubt orbit would be within reach of wage earners. Similarly we could afford to pay for a ship to drop a few tons of rock off Guam, but going to the bottom of the Mariana trench and returning alive would be a different kettle of fish.
To me it seems if we see orbital success in the next 5 yrs, mass production of starship thereafter and SpaceX sticking to their Earth-to-Earth transport idea - this seems plausible. Airliners developed about as quick, but then again its a far harder environment - it's nice to dream.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0
(edit rambling on about the wrong system)
Seems potentially a bunch quicker than current air transport (~12 hours)?
I could see potential US Army interest in this concept. I think they would want the Starship to land horizontal rather than vertical for rapid disembarking though. I.e.: A ramp drops from the nose cone or similar. That doesn't seem very feasible.
While that's a good point, there are some situations they can't really pre-stage in without that in itself causing serious problems. Taiwan springs to mind.
So if some magical way is developed to have Starship land and offload it's entire cargo in <super short time>, before it's shot out of the sky, I wonder if that would be useful. Perhaps even as part of an effective deterrent strategy?
Starship, "Ironclad edition". :)
We have pretty much instant communication already in the form of email.
Forget tourism, at that price beaming solar power back to earth approaches viability.
In a speech to USAF in 2019, Musk said SpaceX's out of pocket cost per launch could be "maybe like $2 million," which would be about $20,000 per ton.
Adjust numbers for inflation accordingly.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1571540353978859526
See also this tweet clarifying that fixed costs are expected to exceed marginal costs:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1328770804222468097
"looks like marginal cost of launch will be less than $1M for more than 100 tons to orbit, so it’s mostly about fixed costs divided by launches per year"
Not trying to nitpick you here. Just hoping to correct some of the confusion that results from playing Telephone with secondary and tertiary sources.